Shitanda

Shitanda is a dynamic and versatile artist. He was born and is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. He thrives in the realm of multiple artistic disciplines navigating between photography, painting, textiles, sculpture, and film. With a passion for experimentation, in his work, Shitanda pushes the boundaries of traditional artistic forms, often blending techniques to create truly unique and captivating pieces. His photography captures moments frozen in time, while his paintings bring to life vibrant worlds of color and emotion. Through textiles, Shitanda weaves stories and textures, while his sculptures transcend the constraints of material, allowing ideas to take tangible shapes. His foray into film adds yet another dimension to his artistic practice, as he crafts visual narratives that engage and provoke thought.

 

 

‘In my works, I employ experimental textures, colors, objects, light, and shadow to create settings that lead to a fusion of mundane and surreal subjects, engaging with the human body as a versatile vessel that houses the concurrence of conflicting emotions and experiences, as a means of seeking an understanding of the complexity of self-identity and the fragility of life. I capture and show ephemeral moments, emotions, life’s dualities, and its beauty from an unconstrained perspective that calls upon a distant memory, time and place, creating a soft allusive nostalgia for the unknown and stretching to cross the line that separates our fantasies from reality. All with the aim of challenging rigid preconceived notions surrounding our perception of the human experience.’

The Chorus

The Chorus series captures the fear and anxiety of exploring the unknown by engaging with the body as a versatile vessel that houses the concurrence of conflicting emotions and experiences surrounding pain and pleasure, as a means of seeking an understanding of the complexity of self-identity and the fragility of life. Like the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the body and mind take on new forms that allow them to occupy and navigate a new and unfamiliar space.

Presence and Absence

The series explores the human experience and where it can take us if the mind opens to traverse radical and fantastic possibilities outside the constraints of preconceived notions that surround the perception of self and one’s life’s course.